so im utg+1 with Ah2x4xQh in a soft 9 handed game. im 2nd in chips with 260 BBs. i decided to open with a pot bet and get called by the LJ, button, SB & BB. 5 ways to a flop of 5h8hTh. prior to this ive been c betting 100% of my PFRs. i built my stack mostly on getting heads up and making my opponent fold on the flop/turn. up to this point ive gone all the way to the river just once (and scooped that too). so now i flop a monster multiway and this is where im a bit undecided on what to do. tell me if my though process is lacking.

if i cbet my nut flush im probably not getting called right (?) considering how the table is. is it a horrible play to let them see a free card? if a 2 comes i chop with A3 and i dont want that. should i be more inclined to check if i had A23 cause then i wouldnt have to chop the pot but get 3/4? does giving someone a free card to make their set a profitable play as that person is still drawing vs my made hand? i guess it would depend if that person's set is a high or low card right? probably different views if it was heads up but this is multiway (my first at the table) and i hit this board hard so idk??? do i change my c bet sizing if i do decide to bet the flop? up to this point ive been c betting pot on every flop. if say i bet 3/4 or even half pot what does it say now that ive deviated from what ive been doing? or should i just continue with what ive been doing - bet pot and hope someone thinks im bluffing.

i couldnt decide so i deferred to betting pot and everyone folded. i thought to myself i know i misplayed this hand so i need help. Thanks!

My 2c...

I would bet. Your Cbet range needs a mix of nuts and non-nuts.

The problem in O8 is that this nut is so strong that it is obvious, versus NLHE where nutted hands are more stealthy.

I guess it depends on your cbets on these flush boards without the nuts, maybe lesser flush or middle sets etc...

These boards and how you bet them will be noticeable to your opponents so we don't want to be predictable/exploitable.

I suggest you decide if you ever would bet out here without the ace high flush.

If EVER you cbet this with smaller flush or set or wheel wrap etc., then I strongly suggest you keep this nutted hand in that cbet range, for balance.

Every now and again you get to quarter someone, or get action from hands with sets and A2, A3.

Just my 2c...



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Checking is fine, betting is fine. Having a cbet size of pot is probably sub-optimal, for reasons that you might understand by now.

Theoretically, even if your chosen bet size here is pot for whatever reason, I think you could put this hand into your checking range with a relatively high frequency. If you trap only nf+A23, you trap way too infrequently. It is possible that the game in question is so soft that you don't need many traps though.

questions.

#1 of the 3 books i read i got the impression that it was never a good thing to give free cards in omaha particularly plo high low but after playing for some time now i feel like this might be an error or i may have misunderstood the authors. could u elaborate?

#2 they also say betting pot or close to pot is the only way to bet in this game to get fold equity, etc, etc. what is the real deal with this?

the game was really soft. that one hand i showed down to the river i made broadway on the river and villain called a pot bet on river with 3rd pair

i'm definitely not in the same category poster as the above, but my take and experience is that checking in PLO8 when you have a dual (virtual) lock hand is pretty much one of the safest checks you can make in poker. and doing so you often get people to make absolutely gigantic errors into your nut type hands.

so when you're in a game where the action goes in on a later street even if a prior street is checked, it can make plenty of sense to make a flop check when you can predict the action being high regardless on a later street. provided that you think that your check induces that, of course.

Kisada explained it well. For absolute beginners it's decent advice to never give free cards, but it leads to extremely straight-forward strategy which shouldn't be optimal in most games. Against very weak opposition it is possible that extreme straight-forwardness does very well.

I don't think that is correct. You have to choose bet sizes according to the situation (this doesn't mean that you should choose bet sizes according to your hand strength!) and in this spot having a smaller sizing makes a lot of sense to me. There is nothing wrong with cbetting a flop of this texture with say 1/3rd pot sizing. This allows you to bet with a very high frequency, which you seem to be doing. Anyway there are many different valid sizing strategies and that might not be the most important topic for you right now. Just keep in mind that "always bet pot" is not true at all.

Since you think the game is really soft and you have gotten called down light, I am leaning towards betting this hand and leaving only A23+nf as a trap check.

I prefer betting, but I tend to have a fairly agressive image, so I will get more immediate value than many players. Certainly a good spot to make a deceptive check once in a while.

You could go as low as 40% psb here imo.

Yup. I'm mostly cbetting 1/2 pot fwiw.

thank u all for the insight. ive played this game for a while but still consider myself a noob. valid points to consider and implement. i will experiment with diff bet sizing in varying situations and surely will have more questions for the masters

thanks for the affirmation, amok! that's how i've always seen things but i can't say i've discussed PLO8/NLO8 much with anyone so i have no idea if my lines would be considered optimal.

OP, one thing i've learned along the way in my career as a PLO/PLO8/NLO8 player, is when you have the nuts to ask yourself "how do i get my opponent(s) to give me all his chips?" i mean literally remind yourself of this if you make the nuts. it helps you set up how you play the hand, and the answer can very quite greatly.

you'll find that sometimes it means betting pot because your stack sizes allow for him to call a turn or river bet with his entire stack. or sometimes that means sandbagging and getting him to pot/pot/pot you thinking he has the best hand. i've had opponents who just start going nuts if you bet less than half pot because they think you're weak. pretty much every opponent has bet sizing you can make that can trigger their suspicions. you wanna trigger that hoping it doesn't just make them suspicious, but also fly off the handle vs you.

in this case, if i bet it's most likely something on the smaller side to set up some flop calls which makes it harder for opponents to get away from you on the turn (if they hit something). but that's also close to my typical bet sizing for when i whiff. i should also add that in big multi-way pots, i'm probably checking more than i bet, because being the opener preflop and c-betting post can be scary to the guys i wanna keep in. even worse would be betting and having someone raise behind you shutting out your customers.

No reason not to bet. But potsized seems a little much unless they are truly terrible or you are seen as a maniac.

great point. I struggle sometimes with following what the books say vs what I should really be doing. sometimes I scare myself into making sub optimal plays (like betting pot oop with the nuts) because of my lack of experience playing pots oop. I'm going to write that quote on a piece of paper and tape it next to my monitor

well I had been aggressively 3betting in position with strong multi way hands to get heads up. it was working well vs this table. nobody else was 3betting pre flop. then I would bet pot on flop/turn regardless of the board. so I was kinda hoping maybe someone would look me up when I did flop the nuts but nada.

Reasons not to bet were presented in previous posts.

Well, everyone comes to a point where they start wondering if the book's suggestion is better vs what's off the normal path. If you ask me, having a clear understanding of fundamentals is key before you do any off the cuff stuff, so don't be afraid to play by the book until you're ready to venture out.

One thing that I think might help you is setting up a game theory chart for certain situations. Let's say you're 3-way and you have this flop. In the column where your opponents will call all bets all the time then you'd mark that down. In the column where they only call small bets or half pot bets, you mark that down. Or in the one where they will only put money in if you check and they bet themselves, you mark the appropriate action for that too. And those decisions sometimes aren't what you'd consider "straightforward" and sometimes they can be deemed suboptimal, or at least non-standard moves. For a learning player until you're willing to reason out each player's motives and trigger points in each street in each hand, it will seem confusing. But the more you figure those things out, the more varied moves you can make and eventually it all comes down to that central question "how do i make my opponent put in as much money as possible?"

And you'll find in big bet games, having the right tool for each situation (whether it's betting big, small, or checking to set something up), allows you to answer that question more accurately each time it comes up.